Gartner: It will take three years for BlackBerry to reach a 5% market share

It doesn’t matter how many heartfelt ballads BlackBerry (BBRY) executives sing — the company still faces a long road ahead if it hopes to regain its status as a major power in the mobile industry. Gartner this week projected that BlackBerry won’t reach a 5% share of the global smartphone market until 2016 at the earliest, which only underscores how difficult it will be for the company to significantly expand while mobile giants Apple (AAPL) and Samsung (005930) dominate the competitive landscape. What’s more, Gartner doesn’t think reaching a 5% market share is even a guarantee, as it recommends that companies hold off on investing in BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 as a mobile device management platform “until the market makes a clear statement on BB10’s success (or lack thereof).” So while BlackBerry 10 has reportedly gotten off to a fairly encouraging start so far, there are still a lot of pitfalls that could trip the company up in the coming months.